So a lot of wrestling nerds are really upset because instead of doing what basically every wrestling fan alive wants – up to and including Mick Foley – and simply putting Daniel Bryan in the main event, last night’s RAW was used to try and sell the idea of D-Bry going up against Triple H at WrestleMania instead. Which is stupid, because nobody thinks Triple H is a main-event level match any more except Triple H; that was part of the reason CM Punk walked out in the first place, and the Twitter reaction was decidely skewed towards “no, we don’t want this.”

However, now we are at the point where, to book a satisfying main event for WrestleMania, you have to satisfy the following conditions:

1. Daniel Bryan wins the title
2. Batista is involved (because his contract stipulates that he main-events WrestleMania this year)
3. Randy Orton is involved (because Orton needs to get his comeuppance)
4. Triple H is involved somehow (because whatever)
5. It is a good match

The problem here is obvious: right now you have one babyface (Bryan) and three heels. Batista is a heel no matter what awful promo he gives about respecting the fans, because absolutely nobody wants him around – I know, it’s hard to fathom that wrestling fans wouldn’t be enthusiastic about a 45-year-old wrestler who can barely go for five minutes without collapsing in heaving gasps, returning to the ring after almost four years, during which time he pursued a failed MMA career and a mostly-failed acting career1, and during which time he took every opportunity to mock wrestling and wrestling fans. I mean, who wouldn’t want to cheer for that guy, really? And of course that ties into the second problem, which is that Batista can barely wrestle any more; his recent matches against Alberto Del Rio were embarrassing, with Alberto doing his absolute best to wrestle for two and cover Batista’s inability to do anything at all capably.2

Because it seems unlikely that Bryan and Orton, both excellent wrestlers, can cover Batista’s flaws entirely during this match – he’s that bad now – and because the face/heel imbalance is problematic, we can’t simply have an Orton/Batista/Bryan three-way dance for the title, because you’ll have all sorts of problems: when Orton and Batista are in the ring together for an extended sequence without Bryan, which has to happen in three-way matches, the crowd will be dead or chanting DAN-IEL BRY-AN, which isn’t the reaction you want particularly.

The answer, however, is very simple indeed: put in another face.

Next week in Chicago, redirect the HHH/Bryan challenge to HHH refusing Bryan’s challenge and then pivot it to D-Bry demanding he get a title shot – and then HHH says “fine, if you want to be in the title match at WrestleMania? At WrestleMania, you’ll first have to beat me – AND Kane.” And then up the stakes (always up the stakes) by saying if Bryan loses, he has to retire (“I’m tired of your little career and your chants, it’s time for you to go away and be irrelevant forever”). So now we have the most unfair, stacked-against-the-babyface situation possible: Daniel Bryan has to beat two guys in a handicap match and risk his career ending in order to get a second chance to beat two guys for the title.

But THEN what you do is you have HHH or Kane get cocky and say something like “nobody in the locker room REALLY supports you” and say that if Bryan can find a partner, then it can be a tag match against HHH and Kane at WrestleMania, but the same stipulations apply: Bryan’s partner is putting HIS career on the line too, but will also get a title shot. And that’s how you get either CM Punk (the obvious choice, but one that may not be available) or Dolph Ziggler (the perfectly acceptable alternate and a major crowd favorite) into the main event at WrestleMania.3 And of course Bryan goes over, because duh.

That’s how I’d book WrestleMania at this point. You know, if I wanted it to be good.

(Also, here is a freebie: introduce a fourth Wyatt Family member, and then you have an eight-man tag at WrestleMania: the Wyatts against the Shield and John Cena. You get a second match out of the insanely hot Shield/Wyatts feud, you get all the dramatic tension of bitter enemies teaming together to defeat a greater evil, you can use it to further the Shield breakup angle because Dean Ambrose doesn’t want to team up with Cena but Rollins and Reigns want to be practical and beat the Wyatts, and the superteam of Cena/Shield can credibly beat the Wyatts at WrestleMania without the Wyatts losing any heat in the process.)

Guardians of the Galaxy was a Hail Mary pass for Batista, assuming it succeeds. Incidentally, don’t be surprised if the marketing for it drops off, because Disney originally decided to do Guardians because they wanted a Marvel answer to Star Wars – and then they bought Star Wars, so Guardians is now the lame duck of the Marvel Cineverse. [↩]

He came close, because Del Rio is a damn good wrestler – but only close. [↩]

If Punk doesn’t want to wrestle – which may well be the case – I would use Ziggler and then STILL offer Punk money just to show up and interfere on Bryan/Ziggler’s behalf at WrestleMania in the main event, have him give Kane and HHH a half dozen chairshots to the back so the crowd can go atomic. [↩]

The ‘E certainly dropped the ball on this one and rather than admit their mistake and come up with a solution, they seem intent on walking blindly into the brick wall they built themselves.

There is an option C here. Orton beats Batista at Wrestlemania. Bryan beats Triple H. The next night on Raw, Bryan demands a title shot, but is attacked by Orton, Batista (who turns heel), Kane, & Triple H prior to the match. Facing nearly impossible odds against Orton (with the other three guys at ringside), somehow Bryan pulls off the win as the crowd goes ballistic.

My understanding is that people like Kevin Fiege (sp?) and some of the other suits at Marvel were and are really gung-ho about GotG, regardless of how the Disney megacorp feels about it. It’s the same reason they’re pushing for a Doctor Strange movie. There’s apparently already a GotG sequel tentatively planned for after Avengers 2.

And frankly, the way JJ Abrams is jerking everyone around with Star Wars, maybe it’ll be a good idea to have a backup.

I did have one thought about how they should have done the angle prior to this point. Batista should have been the heel from day one. I mean, it worked for The Rock, coming back in and getting hotshotted to the title. Because he’s a popular guy outside wrestling circles. Batista, to be blunt, is not.

Imagine it. He comes back in as a buddy of HHH, asking for a title shot for Wrestlemania, but the contracts for the Rumble are drawn up already and some people in the Rumble have signed them. The best way for Batista to get what he wants is to be put in the Rumble. So he goes in, and by sheer coincidence happens to draw slot 30, a number drawn by HHH himself in an obviously rigged draw. After which, the authority goes out of their way to make sure Batista wins.

The fans can draw their own conclusions, and perhaps some face or other can point it out. He’s close to the boss. It’s a blatant attempt to draw interest for a returning wrestler, while Batista blatantly does not deserve the position he’s in. He’s covered in ring rust, and the authority can spend time to wrestlemania feeding him jobbers to try to shake it off.

That’s an interesting build, provided he has an opponent that is not Randy Orton. All it needs is a good face. Doesn’t even have to be Daniel Bryan. Hell, if they put the belt on Punk, an angle like this might even have got him to stay.

I think the really frustrating thing about this is that, with the talent at their disposal and the storylines already in place, the WM we’re getting is less interesting that probably a half dozen cards you could put together virtually at random.

I’ll happily chip in for those CM Punk-chairshots-to-Trips if you’re trying to crowdfund this.

But I can’t shake the feeling that if/when Bryan finally gets to the top of the pile that a lot of people are going to feel hollow. The struggle is a good watch in itself. I’m not convinced an extended reign would be.

zippy8 – it’s because wrestling fans are most often self-entitled. They’ll cheer until he gets what they want, and then their interest will cool. It’s why Vince couldn’t find a babyface champion worth a damn until he stumbled onto Austin, who beat people up constantly and rarely looked vulnerable.

Of course, then fans started cheering Rock more. So Austin became a bad guy, and then the fans cheered him more. The moral of the story is wrestling fans hate good guys, like when they turn, and then cheer the new bad guys so much they’re turned again, rendering the entire point moot.

Actually, didn’t Hell in a Cell do better than last year? And that was anticipated to be when Bryan would actually win- nobody expected Battleground to be anything important, and lo, it wasn’t.

I don’t necessarily think Bryan needs to main event WM this year, but I do think the main needs to be something other than Orton/Batista, where there is nobody to cheer for or get remotely excited about. Seriously, throw Cena in there, Bryan, Sheamus, any reasonably charismatic face, suddenly the match gets interesting.

I have no idea why they’ve kept the belt on Orton this long when he’s not drawing any reactions.

Ian “lukewarm” Austin – yes, the audience generally only wants what it wants until it gets it. Then on to the next thing. But the reaction to Bryan chasing a belt but always missing out is working. Once he gets it… then what ? Excellent wrestler that he may be, the first steroidal behemoth that he defends against is, quite reasonably, going to squash him in 6 seconds.

As Intercontinental or oh-so-fuzzy US champ… fine… but retaining a modicum of plausibility but in wrestling might not be a bad thing.

“Excellent wrestler that he may be, the first steroidal behemoth that he defends against is, quite reasonably, going to squash him in 6 seconds.”

Wasn’t this the same logic that screwed up Bret Hart’s title run? Hogan kept saying he was too small, they booked that crappy finish to Wrestlemania IX, he drops the belt to Yokozuna on the way out, it takes forever for Hart to be established as a legit champion…